I *finaly* got my bro's computer to access the net through mine.

And hes happy. Except, in order to get him off of my computer once and for all he needs to be able to access Hotmail - and it fails on login every time. I figure its something to do with the secure link needed for login. Any ideas on how to fix it?

Both machines are running win98 with a 100BaseT (overkill I know) lan between them. Mine has an AOL connection through 56K modem. His has mine as a gateway and uses Freeserve DNS settings since I happen to know them. Far as I can see he should be able to get in no problem.

Oh, and just to make my job harder he wants to be able to us MSN messenger as well. I just *know* thats going to work perfectly first time...

Im trying to remember how you set the IP numbers on 98. On ME (think its the same for 98) get into control panel. Go to Network. Then go down to the TPC/IP part of the configuration tab.

Highlight the network adaptor and click properties. On the IP Addresses tab you can enter something like 192.168.0.1 on the first line and on the second line something like 255.255.255.0 and click ok and restart.

That should all be on the host.

On the client you can leave all that to "obtain IP address automaticly." I wouldnt do it manually unless the automatic thing didnt work.

Sometimes youll get conflicts if they are BOTH set to "obtain automaticly". They both try to grab the same address. Having one permanently set to a specific address can help alot.

Let me know how it goes [img]smile.gif[/img]

OH, I had the LAN working, twas just the connection sharing that was the problem. I fixed it this morning by giving him IE6 to install while I tried to think of something clever. Coudnt think of anything so I went into Network and removed VPN (Whoever intalled *that* on my system is in trouble) and messed around with various protocol and adapter settings. It works now. Even MSN messenger.